She Wears the Pants, He Looks at Plants: Hotfootin to the Himalaya

Yakity yak

Our trip to Nepal began auspiciously with a flight into the World's most dangerous airport, in Lukla. Oft delayed, these flights test your mettle as the runway angle is quite steep to allow for ample speed to be gained in takeoff which hurls you off a mountain. We have video.

World's most dangerous airport in Lukla.

From here it was all Namaste (hello/goodbye/I salute the god within you) yaks, porters, and mountain vistas. The season chose us more than we chose it and it worked out pretty well. April is the busiest of the pre-monsoon months seeing around 7,000 people enter the park. October is the busiest of the post-monsoon seasons with around 10,000 people coming through. March sits around 4,000 and while there will be some jostling for the best photos at the lookouts and a fair amount of yak baggage trains moving through it isn't too bad. We always found a place to stay without trouble and at our pace never had to worry about crowds on the trail. Most summit bids will be made in April and May so we would catch the the tail end of the real mountaineers heading up when we were heading back out. They require tons of gear to make it to the top so the matching luggage trains heading up mountain on the backs of yaks and porters was most likely attributed to these summiteers.

I believe that's 9 4x4's. Powerful people. Boy to the left has the 'tump line' in position. They carry all these loads by a strap on the forehead and balanced ropes in the hands.

Cow yak hybrid. Ama Dablam in the background.

Most people will hire a guide and while this would be nice for the pointing out of scenery and explanation of culture, we couldn't afford it and didn't think we would need the help. Many people will hire a personal porter as well to carry their stuff for them. Some of the loads they would bring for someone else to carry were absurd. Kelly and I both had about 30 liters of stuff which is a smallish backpacking bag of stuff. People were lugging in 120L bags for less days and then handing it to a porter who will gladly take it for the $ but seriously people. Kelly showed them all up. And passed them all on the trail too.

While this is a backpacking trip, it isn't quite like one you may take at home. There can be camping, but it seems a little too contrived because you would have to camp outside of a lodge or teahouse. This is known as a tea-house trek.

Standard common area for all tea-houses. That's a yak paddy burning stove.

Standard room in all the tea-houses.

Spaced anywhere from an hour to 4 hours apart are little areas or villages people have built tea-houses for lodging. Also a good reason to sleep in the tea-houses, Yeti! The legends are still strong here and there are two monasteries along the way that boast yeti parts on display to add fuel to the fire (or water to the ice cube tray). A tea-house is a small establishment consisting of a common room for eating, lounging, and heating, with a larger area off the side for very small and very unluxurious sleeping rooms consisting of two twin beds, a blanket, and single sheet plywood walls. It isn't a vacation home, but these are just the ones we stayed at and payed for. There are some nicer places to stay but why bother, the luxuries here are outside anyhow. The bathroom is common and usually an Asian style squatter. The room for the night would cost anywhere from 300 Rupees to free. 85 Rupees is a dollar. The food though would be about 1000-3500 Rupees (depending on how high up he mountain we were) for the two of us for dinner and breakfast which is all we ate. The thing is, EVERYTHING has to be carried up and mostly by people so when you see the porter carrying 1.5 times his bodyweight on his back, the food prices are justified. There are no roads, only trails and lost and lots of people to provide for. As you can surely imagine, the Himalayan foothills do not provide the most fertile growing grounds. Potatoes and cabbage are rampant but otherwise it all comes up on the backs of beasts of burden and men at work.

Stupas in Khumjung, lost yak, curious kiddo.

These suspension bridges are common on the trail and often have 30 yaks fully loaded on at the same time so they're sturdy.

On day two we arrived at Namche Bazar at 3,440 meters (11,285ft). Day three is the first rest day because you need time to acclimate. On your rest day you can't really rest though, there is so much to see and the peaks that so abruptly climb around you inspire you to keep running around. We went up to a small village above Namche where many of the people who work higher on the range live, Kumjung. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mt. Everest with Tenzing Norgay Sherpa dedicated much of his life to improving the quality of life for the Sherpa people after his historic climb in 1953. This town was where one of his schools was established and now has celebrated over 50 years of giving free education to the children of the area. There is also a hospital here that he helped create.

Mani prayer walls.

Runway at Syangboche. Drops off the cliff way more than Lukla.

Namche Bazaar from above. This is the big city.

A quick lesson about the local people here. The Himalaya, not Himalayas, are the largest and one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world. They run on the northern border of Nepal and the southern border of China, in an area that is known as Tibet. Tibet is not a country on its own although much of it wants to be. The high plains of Tibet are very very dry and suffer the consequences of the rain shadow from the Himalaya. For hundreds of years the Tibetan people have been migrating over the high passes and through the Himalaya to the Nepalese side. Some of these people are Rai and some of these people are Sherpa. Sherpa is not a job description. To be a porter is to be a porter. To be a Sherpa is like to be a Spaniard. Since the beginnings of these large mountain expeditions Westerners have come to realize that the Sherpas are built to better handle the altitude. They are a very hearty people and this is one of the poorest countries in the world so they work for little. With more and more big money coming from tourist groups wanting to be helped up the mountains the Sherpa have become synonymous with success in the mountains and for good reason. Physically, the Sherpa just perform better at altitude and it is thought that Sherpa 'sea level' is closer to 6,000ft so they have a pretty good head start.

Since people have more expendable $ the Sherpa have been able to jump above in a pretty well structured caste system and become more successful than their fellow Tibetan brothers. The mountains teem with porters moving goods up the trail for every tea house and anything else you can imagine. These days though, these less glamorous and much lower paying porter jobs go to the Rai and other tribal people. Sherpa people own the tea-houses, take paying customers trekking as guides on the same routes we took and speak several languages, or work as porters but for the much more lucrative big mountain trips. They would be called climbing Sherpas, and while still lugging gear up and down, they move with technical alpining skill. They are well equipped through whatever companies hire them to ensure the safety of expeditions and customers as best they can. These days it would cost you from $45,000 to $120,000 to climb Mt. Everest. In a season a good climbing Sherpa can make from $4,000-$6,000. It would depend on how much weight they carry up, how many times they go from camp to camp, and if they make it to the summit. That is more than twice as much as a school teacher makes annually in Kathmandu. To be a climbing Sherpa is a very lucrative position. The money is the draw for these men for since people have been trying to climb Mt. Everest, more than 1/3 of the total deaths have been Sherpa. Every Sherpa person in the business of the mountains, has lost someone close. It is a small but strong community of people and they know what it means that they do what they do.

Prayer Wheel.

Mani Stone and prayer wheel.

The mountain people are also a very pious bunch. Tibetan Buddhism is the dominant religion with almost every establishment you walk into proudly displaying a photo of the Dalai Lama. It is a peaceful and pleasant religion. You can't walk 50 ft without seeing some sort of text or symbol. Prayer flags wave gallantly from every peak. They are displays of primary colored banners also called 'wind horses' because of the horse often depicted in the center of them. As they flutter and wave in the winds they are thought to release the prayers written on them across the land to benefit everyone. Also prominent along the trail are prayer wheels. These again are brightly colored and just put a smile on your face when you see them. From the size of a Folgers can to the size of a small car these wheels are there for passersby to spin. Make it go around three times and always spin clockwise. To do so releases the prayers upon them to spread good will and ward off evil. 'Mani stones' line the trails form time to time as well. These are carved stone tablets. Some are very, very intricate and the whole setup is very visually appealing. When you see these you should also take care to pass them on the left side. The point of much of this is reverence of the gods in the mountains and specifically Everest or Chomolungma 'mother of the world'. Religion is here in a way that air is here. It isn't the least bit oppressive, but it is always present, and when you think about it, it's a nice companion.

Inside the monastery at Tengboche. Here we sat for 30 minutes during the monks recitation of their mantras. Very hypnotic.

So from our 'rest' day in Namche we took off and were able to split from the more popular route that takes you directly to Gorak Shep and Everest Base Camp (EBC). We were taking a short detour to skip some of the crowds and follow the advice of our buddy David Trautman from Canada Eh? We headed up the Gokyo Valley to climb Gokyo Ri 5,357m (17,575ft). Once you've climbed up the whole valley though it really is just a small hill to climb for about an hour. On the way up to Gokyo at the top of the valley we stayed in several small tea-houses with million dollar views. In a place called Machermo we decided to attend an Acute Mountain Sickness talk held by a group of British volunteer doctors stationed for a season in this small stop. They are primarily here in order to give medical aid to the porters of the area. There is an international guideline stating that for tourist use anyway, a porter is only allowed to carry 25kg everywhere but Nepal where 35kg is the limit. At this aid station they are provided with a place to sleep, a hot meal, and good medical care for free. The talk given covered Acute Mountain Sickness which can be very serious in some cases even resulting in death. They basically made us aware of signs and symptoms and to be careful going too high too fast. The idea is climb high, sleep low. So in an undulating landscape you should be able to sleep a bit lower than the highest point you reached in that day of climbing. This is the basic idea behind the methods of big mountain climbing. You often need to force your body to acclimatize by going to a high point, hanging out until you get used to it or get sick and then coming down to recover for awhile. Kelly and I were lucky and never suffered from more than a slight headache that was usually solved with more water and some rest.

Above Namche.

On a serious (but kind of ridiculous) note a large guided Danish group was going along the same route as us and had their numbers cut from 16 to 8 because of altitude sickness and not following the rules. Then again the highest point in Denmark is something like 130 meters so I wouldn't say they were designed like Sherpa. On a daily basis, the rescue chopper can heard all day shuttling injured hikers and those overcome with altitude sickness back to Kathmandu.

Porter power. So many people coming up means so many places getting built. Economics in action and thew only way to get supplies is literal man-power. Up to 9 quarter sheets each.

Appreciates our yak-complishments.

Prayer horses.

Yaks eat the grasses and make the fuel for the fires. No wood up here but it sure is cold.

At Gokyo Ri we stood at 5,357 meters and from that vantage could feasibly see 5 of the world's 10 highest peaks at once. Mt. Everest (8,848m), Kangchenjunga (8,586m), Lhotse (8,516m), Makalu (8,481m), and
Cho Oyu (8,201m). Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy so not all were totally visible but with what we could see you couldn't care. It was so dramatic and fearsome. There are few more inhospitable scenes available that are equally so enchanting.

Take a better look at this one. From the top of Gokyo Ri, you should be able to see 5 of the world's ten highest points.

Couldn't get the right name for these but they're big and everywhere.

Chillin. The mountain is a sacred place and many Buddhists are vegetarian anyway but you cannot kill an animal while in the area without angering the gods. All meat is walked up on the backs of porter just like everything else. Needless to say we only ate veg while trekking. Sometimes they barely yak-knowledge your existence.

We stuck around Gokyo for a second day to further acclimatize and just hang out. We did some more hiking around and took a couple of hours to sit on the hill of the back side of the village that borders the massive Ngozumpa glacier. This is the longest glacier in the Himalaya. Everything is so silent that you can hear the glacier sing. Creaks and groans, cracks and moans, massive chunks breaking before your eyes. Rocks falling off the edges that have been poised for millennia and only just now have taken the plunge as if for our entertainment. Thunder that means something. Glaciers are the coolest.

Glacier crossing.

Cho Oyu. 6th tallest mountain in the world.

Then next day we crossed that very glacier in one of the cooler hikes you could take.

Doing a little laundry. This young cow loved to drink the soapy water.

The following day was a push over the Cho La pass at 5,368m (17,611ft). A day that was a big concern for us because we had no guide but we managed to find ourselves between two small groups and heading up. We managed to power over just fine before re-joining the masses on the EBC trail.

View from the top of the Cho La pass looking back from whence we came.

Top of the pass.

The following day was up to our highest elevation. We walked in the morning from a frigid Lobuche to an even colder Gorak Shep, the last village before Everest Base Camp. Upon arrival with the crystal clear weather holding we rushed to get up Kala Patthar at 5,550m (18,208 ft). This was the supreme view of the trip in my opinion. Mt. Everest towered directly in front of us in all it's massive splendor. Clear skies and perfect light reflected off Lhotse and Nuptse in close proximity, but the monster that is the highest point on the planet stole the show. Mt. Everest was almost at our fingertips and it. Was. Big.

Panorama from the top of Kala Patthar. The highest point we reached at 5550m. Tall one above to the left is Mt Everest, in the center is Nupste about 1000m lower, just closer to us.

Everest Portrait.

See above.

The Khumbu icefall poured down the front from our view and at it's side waaaay down below us were the tropically colored islands of tents that populate Everest Base camp. It was still a bit too early for the expeditions to be in base camp, but not too early for the ever-busy Sherpa to be picking out prime real estate for their teams. The following day when we took the hike to the area itself you could certainly tell they were getting ready for some serious action. Massive yak trains clogged the paths and when those big fellas come rolling through to the tune of yak bells you move aside and let them pass at their leisure. By the time the paying customers get to base camp the whole thing will be set up and hot tea will be waiting. The more we learned about the way attempts at the summit work, the more contrived it seems to be. Given, it will still take a lot of very hard physical work and effort, most of that will be the effort of the Sherpa to pave the way and make things go as smoothly as possible. The Nat Geo special on 50 years of Everest is a very good documentary that puts modern climbing in great perspective compared to how it was when Hillary and Norgay first summited.

Everest base camp.

Khumu icefall.

EBC with some of the tents already in place for this year's expeditions.

Having grown up hungrily reading about Everest and Himalayan expeditions I will say that this was one of the highlights of my life so far. To actually know now from personal perspective what life is like in the Himalaya, what Sherpa life is like, what the mountains look like when they tower miles above you, what yak cheese tastes like.... I've been able to answer so many longing questions from my youth and can say I kind of understand this place now, at least better than just reading about it. Also we now know what its like to not shower for 16 days.

Memorial to Scott Fischer who was the expedition leader for Mountain Madness, one of the teams who were a large part of the disastrous 1996 climbing season.

Asked him why, said why not. Another guy in his group once brought an ironing board to base camp for some extreme housekeeping. He is mentioned in the Lonely Planet.